9 New Books We Recommend This Week

Image

June 1, 2017

Conflict and its aftermath haunt the books on our recommended list this week, from “Music of the Ghosts,” the story of a Cambodian refugee who returns home, to “Where the Line Is Drawn,” a personal journey through the 50 years of occupation that followed the Six Day War, to “The Allure of Battle,” which suggests nothing less than a new approach to military history. A biography of Ernest Hemingway looks past the legend of masculinity to the man (and writer) underneath, while a study of the Great Lakes dives beneath the surface to offer solutions to the catastrophic problems caused by climate change and invasive species. And “The Gift (Or, Techniques of the Body),” a smart, playful novel about performance, steers the concept of autofiction in a new direction.

Radhika JonesEditorial Director, Books

THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT LAKES,by Dan Egan. (Norton, $27.95.) Climate change, population growth and invasive species are destabilizing the Great Lakes’ wobbly ecosystem. But in telling what might otherwise be a grim tale, Egan, a two-time Pulitzer finalist, splices together history, science, reporting and personal experience into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative, bursting with life. He is most galvanizing when he pairs alarming problems with concrete and achievable solutions.

THE GIFT(Or, Techniques of the Body),by Barbara Browning. (Coffee House/Emily Books,paper, $15.95.) This smart, funny, heartbreaking and often sexy novel concerns an artist and professor of performance studies (like the author) engaged in a continuing art project that bears an uncertain resemblance to her life. While it is in one sense part of the recent era of autofictions, “The Gift” is directed outward, toward the reader, rather than toward the writing self.

MISS BURMA,by Charmaine Craig. (Grove, $26.) A character based on Craig’s Jewish grandfather marries a woman who belongs to a non-Burmese ethnic minority, the Karen, in a novel that reimagines their extraordinary lives. Their mixed-race daughter becomes the “Miss Burma” of the title, and the novel addresses themes of identity, longing and trust over nearly 40 years of Burmese history.

THE ALLURE OF BATTLE:A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost,by Cathal J. Nolan. (Oxford University, $34.95.) The traditional Western view of conflict is that the way to win a war is to seek battle and prevail. This thought-provoking book suggests a new approach to military history: Nolan argues that focusing on battles is the wrong way to understand wars, because attrition is what almost always wins.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY:A Biography,by Mary V. Dearborn. (Knopf, $35.) Hemingway’s outsize life and controversial achievement are a magnet to biographers, and Dearborn is the first woman to join their company. A feminist biography, then? Not exactly. Her chief asset, she says, is her immunity to the hairy-chested Hemingway legend; instead, she focuses on “what formed this remarkably complex man and brilliant writer,” skillfully covering an enormous range of rich material.

MUSIC OF THE GHOSTS,by Vaddey Ratner. (Touchstone, $26.) This tenaciously melodic novel explores art and war as an orphaned Cambodian refugee travels from her new home in Minneapolis to the Buddhist temple where her father was raised by monks, hoping against hope that he is still alive. The author discerns the poetic even in brutal landscapes and histories, forging musical phrases from conflict.

WHERE THE LINE IS DRAWN:A Tale of Crossings, Friendshipsand Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine,by Raja Shehadeh. (New Press, $25.95.) In deeply honest and intense essays, Shehadeh, a civil rights lawyer and the author of “Palestinian Walks,” who now lives in Ramallah, describes his psychological and physical crossings into Israel. Through his friendship with a quirky Jungian analyst named Henry Abramovitch, a Canadian immigrant to Israel, Shehadeh reflects the 50-year history of the occupation and the elusive quest for peace.

THE WITCHFINDER’S SISTER,by Beth Underdown. (Ballantine, $28.) An English witch hunter, Matthew Hopkins, caused more than a hundred women to be hanged in the 1640s. Hopkins and his reign of terror exist in the historical record, but little is known about his private life. In this ominous, claustrophobic novel, Underdown imagines his pregnant, widowed sister, who sees the malignant forces at work but is powerless to resist.

FEN:Stories,by Daisy Johnson. (Graywolf,paper, $16.) The stories in Johnson’s debut collection explore the shape-shifting world of the Fens, once flooded lands in the east of England. Here, where both land and life are flat, the privations of rural teenage existence yield wild and elemental bewitchments.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page 55 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Editors’ Choice / Staff Picks From the Book Review. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe